


Hug

by jynx



Series: LJ Comment Fic [6]
Category: The Flash (Comics)
Genre: Gen, M/M, zombie james
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-22 15:26:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2512568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jynx/pseuds/jynx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James comes back from the dead and needs something from Hartley</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hug

It wasn't that Hartley wasn't glad that James was back, but sometimes he just wanted to make the other man shut up. The nervous energy and too big grin with the forced jokes actually made Hartley miss the old James. At least that one acted right. This James? Not so much.

He jumped at every little thing, eyed rooms he'd just entered as if the walls were going to rip themselves out of their support structures and devour him, and clutched at his Trickster puppet like it was a life line. Hartley had, at least, managed to save the puppets and James's flying shoes in that last fight. Sleep was out of the question. James took the couch, but Hartley sometimes watched him violently jerk himself out of sleep right as he fell asleep. 

Whatever James had been through, it wasn't pleasant. Hartley didn't know what to do to fix it, but he wanted to do something. James was his friend, maybe his best friend. Seeing him like this hurt, but the other man refused to open up. He would talk, non-stop, about things that didn't matter. Hell, James could be reading the phone book for all that what he was saying mattered. Hartley had tried prying it out of him, but James had vanished for two days after that, only to show up on the third day in Hartley's living room with a pudding cup and watching Divorce Court. Hartley had resigned himself to the sound of endless chattering on about absolutely nothing and the sure knowledge that unless he did something, James would continue to slip away from him until he returned to death out of sheer terror of death.

“Hey, Hart?” James asked, startling Hartley out of his thoughts. James calling him by his name, instead of Piper, was also new. That change was one Hartley actually liked.

“Yeah?”

James was silent for a moment and then shook his head, “Never mind.”

Hartley wanted to scream. This was ridiculous. That wasn't James. Well, no. It was, but it wasn't, and he was getting really tired of this bullshit. He rubbed his forehead and watched James poke at his mug of tea. There was something distinctly pitiful about the way James was sitting, shoulders hunched, head hanging as he slowly ran his finger along the rim of the mug.

“James, you know if you need anything that I'll do it,” Hartley said quietly from the other side of the table. 

James nodded, “Yeah, I know.”

“Then what were you going to ask me?” Hartley asked, trying to keep his voice even and gentle. There was no sense letting James know how frustrated he was. The idiot would probably think Hartley was frustrated with him instead of the situation.

James was quiet for a little longer and looked up at Hartley with a tiny smile, “...can I have a hug?”

Hartley stared at him. “A... hug?”

James nodded, his body language betraying him as he braced himself for … something. Rejection, maybe? Hartley got up and came around the table to James's side and pulled him into a slightly awkward hug. Hartley didn't hug, or touch, people unless he had to. But giving James a hug after he'd asked for it – the only thing he'd asked for from Hartley besides a place to stay – was impossible to say no to. So he pulled James out of his chair and hugged the man, trying to show him that Hartley did care, and that he'd try and help fix whatever was wrong with James with James. That they'd do it together. James wrapped his arms around Hartley and clung to him tightly, desperate in his silence.


End file.
